Serena Williams now says she plans to reach out to the family of the teenage girl in the Steubenville rape case after a Rolling Stone piece seemed to suggest she questions the fairness of the sentence given the two classmates convicted of attacking her.
In a statement posted on her website, the world’s top-ranked player said of the victim “she plans to let her know that I am deeply sorry for what was written.” The statement adds “what I supposedly said is insensitive and hurtful, and I by no means would say or insinuate that she was at all to blame.”
In the article, the magazine reports that while watching a TV segment about the ongoing Ohio -based case involving two high school football players charged with raping the 16-year-old as other students watched and later texted details of the incident, Williams’ demonstratively shakes her head before responding “do you think it was fair what they got?”
Rolling Stone then reports she continued: “They did something stupid, but I don’t know. I’m not blaming the girl, but if you’re a 16-year-old and you’re drunk like that, your parents should teach you: don’t take drinks from other people. She’s lucky. Obviously I don’t know, maybe she wasn’t a virgin, but she shouldn’t have put herself in that position, unless they slipped her something, then that’s different.”
According to the Cleveland Plain Dealer, Thomas Lipps, 17, was recently convicted in juvenile court in connection with the crime and ordered to register as a sex offender every six months for the next 20 years. A hearing for Ma’Lik Richmond, also convicted in the case, is slated for this Friday.
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